62 replies to this topic

[TehSBGX]

Actually All I hear about tf2 is my friends bitching how Pay2Win it is. So no it's not done right there at all. Plus compared to unreal 2k4 the gameplay itself sucks. I don't know anything about LoL since it's Dota jr. and I hate the original Dota so I avoid it.

Anyhow there really isn't any way free to play is done right IMO it's just varying degrees of Pay to WIn. I consider Hero Mechs pay to win, Others don't. It just depends how far PGI runs with it honestly, so far it seems they aren't all that guilty of it and hopefully it stays like that.

[xDeityx]

Matt Minus, on 20 March 2013 - 03:46 PM, said:

Of course it's not sustainable. Everyone wants to oversimplify complicated phenomena and act like outliers are the rule.

Saying "of course it is, look at LoL" is like saying that every MMO should be successful charging $15/month because WoW did it.

As was pointed out in the OP, the model assumes most players will never open their wallets and relies on economies of scale to make the 5% or so who will a sustainable source of income. I suspect there are significant first mover advanatges that diminish as more and more games move f2p and split the pool of players. The market simply can't support a large number of LoL size player bases, there aren't that many gamers. And, to get that many gamers a game will have to be as broad as possible. Anything unique or niche will probably lose out to elves and hobbits.

So do you think this is a cash grab? I'm not trying to bait you I genuinely want to know your opinion as someone who can put an intelligent post together.

I ask because ever since the (now revised) P2W coolant flush showed me their true colors I've been feeling more and more like I'm participating in a scam. The complete lack of documentation on CW progress is also very disturbing, since that's supposed to be the core of the game, and the amount of time that absolutely glaring imbalances go untouched is worrying. I'm holding out hope that there will be this huge content drop soon, but the non-naive part of me knows that's just wishful thinking.

[Tennex]

Matt Minus, on 20 March 2013 - 03:46 PM, said:

As was pointed out in the OP, the model assumes most players will never open their wallets and relies on economies of scale to make the 5% or so who will a sustainable source of income.

The model tries to get as many people as possible. and assumes everybody spends the minimum amount. its the volume of people not the quality of the top payers.

1 dollar from everyman sort of thing. the "oh why the heck not i'll spend 5 dollars, and there is a sale going on. i'll get that skin i wanted" everybody is weak to that moment. so generally F2P games are as accessible as possible (and as friendly as possible something PGI can work on). same reason PGI is trying to make this game new player friendly. and why we should support new player friendly additions to the game.

They also *should* come off as free as possible. not greedy etc etc to generate good will and bring in more players by word of mouth. something PGI isn't doing very well.

Edited by Tennex, 20 March 2013 - 03:59 PM.

[CycKath]

Vassago Rain, on 20 March 2013 - 03:47 PM, said:

And LoL is based on a mod that's really a custom map for warcraft 3, that's really a map for starcraft, and you'd need to buy those games to play it.

What's your point?

Unlike MWO, TF2 was not designed to be f2p, it became f2p after the fact and after its retail release paid back its development cost. So is it really valid example of f2p done right when all it needs to cover is server costs, especially when many of the cosmetics in TF2 are fan-created as well.

[FupDup]

TehSBGX, on 20 March 2013 - 03:49 PM, said:

Actually All I hear about tf2 is my friends bitching how Pay2Win it is. So no it's not done right there at all. Plus compared to unreal 2k4 the gameplay itself sucks.

Two things:

1. TF2 is not even remotely P2W. Every gameplay-affecting item (including the dreaded Polycount set hats) can be acquired for free. The stock weapons are almost always the best weapons (except for a few melees, and those are easy to acquire anyways).

2. The gameplay does not suck (unless you're in a really bad server).

Edited by FupDup, 20 March 2013 - 04:14 PM.

[Windies]

Vassago Rain, on 20 March 2013 - 03:47 PM, said:

And LoL is based on a mod that's really a custom map for warcraft 3, that's really a map for starcraft, and you'd need to buy those games to play it.

What's your point?

I never played AoS, was that in SC?

[Agent 0 Fortune]

Of course it's not sustainable, if you want to keep playing MWO go buy some danm MC!

[James Warren]

TehSBGX, on 20 March 2013 - 03:49 PM, said:

Actually All I hear about tf2 is my friends bitching how Pay2Win it is. So no it's not done right there at all. Plus compared to unreal 2k4 the gameplay itself sucks.

I'm not sure what aspect of team fortress 2 your friends consider 'pay to win', but there's nothing in the game (besides certain cosmetic items) that cannot be obtained as a free-to-play player. Team Fortress 2 succeeds as f2p because of its consumable cosmetic items and the gambling system with crates and keys.
The value of TF2's virtual economy has been estimated at over $50 million.

I guess for MWO there will need to be either a fairly steady stream of new content (especially new mechs/camo, that people will want to buy) and/or an increasing reliance on consumables. I think the crates and keys system in TF2 is good because they have no real gameplay impact (besides the "Oh that guy has a sparkly hat, KILL HIM!!!"). Perhaps in MWO you could purchase consumable 'salvage rights' which could provide a chance at extra loot after missions (including special 'salvage only' camos, etc).

[TehSBGX]

FupDup, on 20 March 2013 - 04:09 PM, said:

2. The gameplay does not suck (unless you're in a really bad server).

I'm going to Guess you haven't played Unreal 2k4 or Serious Sam, otherwise you'd rip on tf2 just as much.

[Matt Minus]

xDeityx, on 20 March 2013 - 03:51 PM, said:

So do you think this is a cash grab? I'm not trying to bait you I genuinely want to know your opinion as someone who can put an intelligent post together.

I ask because ever since the (now revised) P2W coolant flush showed me their true colors I've been feeling more and more like I'm participating in a scam. The complete lack of documentation on CW progress is also very disturbing, since that's supposed to be the core of the game, and the amount of time that absolutely glaring imbalances go untouched is worrying. I'm holding out hope that there will be this huge content drop soon, but the non-naive part of me knows that's just wishful thinking.

Well, I wouldn't use the term "cashgrab", as it has negative implications that this is some sort of scam, but I do think they're trying to make money. I also think they'll have to if they want to survive and keep publishing mechwarrior, and I'm fine with that.

In fact, I'm not sure why people feel offended that a company is trying to make money. Games cost money . I don't expect to get them for free.

Now, I'm lucky enough to have disposable income, but I don't necessarily want the best bargain, I'd rather have my preferences satisfied. My preferences run towards big stompy robots. I realize this is not a common interest, so I'll have to pay a little more for it, just like any other specialty good. I can get a lb of Ronzoni for $1, but I'd rather pay $5 for fresh artisinal pasta.

Tennex, on 20 March 2013 - 03:55 PM, said:

The model tries to get as many people as possible. and assumes everybody spends the minimum amount. its the volume of people not the quality of the top payers...

But I'm sure they have actuarial tables that describe with the precision of scientific law what percentage of players will ever spend. And I'm sure there are many that will just never spend. I know that I play facebook games to kill time at work but would never buy gold in their marvel-flavored pokemon clone even if they reduced it by 99%.

[Kiiyor]

Most F2P games earn far more than paid or subscription titles.

Heck, EA recently stated that pretty much ALL their new games would be FTP.

EA.

It must be able to pull in some serious dough to replace their previous tried, true and incredibly lucrative business model that apparantly revolved around kidnapping children and really cute animals to extort money from the general population.

[tuokaerf]

Yes, it is.

Seems like there are three major revenue streams for games: Single purchase, subscription, F2P. I'm not really talking about games made by 3 dudes in the basement, but AAA large efforts.

Single purchase is great for traditional campaign based games. You pay once, you own the game. You might get a few updates or a DLC pack for a few more bucks, but once the game is out, major development work is typically over. This type of game is a risky investment, since it's probably a multi-year development cycle with expensive employees for a game that might or might not do well. In addition, there's a strong push to be platform agnostic, at least on the popular consoles and Windows (Mac as a bonus). The hope is that the game does well enough to pay off the initial investment and to earn a profit to help fund the next game you create.

Subscriptions are great for long-term development games. You can run a game for years off of subscriptions because you have a steady stream of income to create more content and update the game. The problem with subscriptions is that there is a cost barrier to entry. A wide-appealing game (like WoW, etc) can benefit from this since they appeal to a larger player base than stompy robots (like Battletech). In addition, it can be difficult to keep subs up. You have to worry about players leaving, account billing, expired CC's, etc. Personally, while I have plenty of disposable income to spend a lot of cash on games per month, I'm responsible where my money goes. I had my second child in January, and stopped playing MWO for almost a month and a half other than logging in once every two weeks or so to get a fix since I wasn't playing, so why pay? I would have cancelled my sub and might not have started back up for a while.

With F2P, there is no barrier to entry. You can play the game as much as you want without spending a dime. The hope is that some people will spend some cash to get items faster, buy customizations, or pay to level up without playing a ton. This can be done well, or horribly. This is done horribly on a lot of iOS and mobile games. Pay $20, win the game. That model is not sustainable, since players will leave for the next thing. In addition, P2W is a turn off. PGI is doing it right with not really introducing things that would cause P2W, and have been open with plans and making adjustments based on community input (well, rage).

Sustainable is adding content and expanding the game, appeasing to a core base that will give you cash. The problem that MWO has is that it is a more specialized userbase, hence a bit higher cost. From the forum polls I've seen, I would safely assume that this is a bit of an older crowd than a lot of other games (mid 20's-40's), hence more disposable income than 15-22 year olds. The higher cost isn't a big deal for most of these players (ones that would pay). I don't think twice about spending $20-30 a month on a game that I enjoy in small transactions. I do however balk at paying more than $20 for a subscription, because the perceived value is worse. $5 for a mech once a week is cheap and I got to pick my own content.

So if PGI keeps up creating new content, gets CW in, and continues with the great gameplay, we could have MWO for a long time. I would much rather have this than a console game that I won't touch after 5 months of playing.

[Volthorne]

TehSBGX, on 20 March 2013 - 04:15 PM, said:

I'm going to Guess you haven't played Unreal 2k4 or Serious Sam, otherwise you'd rip on tf2 just as much.

You're either deluded, joking, trolling, or all three. Every single UT game is a sh*tstorm fragfest, and Serious Sam is single player. Neither of those remotely compare to the semi-tactical team-oriented TF2 (only semi-tactical because you can sometimes Scout Rush and win, which is hilarious if it works).

Edited by Volthorne, 20 March 2013 - 05:20 PM.

[Mackman]

No matter what anyone says, as many people have pointed out, League of Legends is incontrovertible proof that F2P, without any element of P2W, can not only succeed, but become more popular than most P2P games you could think of.

The trick is putting out new, quality content on a pretty much constant basis. Also, what tuokaerf said.

[TehSBGX]

Volthorne, on 20 March 2013 - 05:19 PM, said:

You're either deluded, joking, trolling, or all three. Every single UT game is a sh*tstorm fragfest, and Serious Sam is single player. Neither of those remotely compare to the semi-tactical team-oriented TF2 (only semi-tactical because you can sometimes Scout Rush and win, which is hilarious if it works).

LAWL I'm dead serious. Apparently you haven't seen Serious Sam Private servers, they kick ***. UT 2k4 is FPS perfection. You just don't know what you're talking about.

[Commander Kobold]

I wish they would have just made the game right and released it as a full game instead of this F2P stuff.

[Matt Minus]

Mackman, on 20 March 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

No matter what anyone says, as many people have pointed out, League of Legends is incontrovertible proof that F2P, without any element of P2W, can not only succeed, but become more popular than most P2P games you could think of.

The trick is putting out new, quality content on a pretty much constant basis. Also, what tuokaerf said.

No matter what anyone says Peter Jackson is incontrovertible proof that dropping out of high school can not only make you a success, but incredibly famous and wealthy beyond your wildest dreams!


See how that works.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

500k players? So this game has almost double the EVE population? As that was at 300k last I heard

[Volthorne]

TehSBGX, on 20 March 2013 - 05:25 PM, said:

LAWL I'm dead serious. Apparently you haven't seen Serious Sam Private servers, they kick ***. UT 2k4 is FPS perfection. You just don't know what you're talking about.

I'll admit, I haven't touched anything UT in a long time. The only memorable thing about those games for me were the maps, because the gameplay was almost non-existent. If a game has only two or three guns that are worth using, then it's no longer a game, it's "garbage".

Edited by Volthorne, 20 March 2013 - 06:24 PM.

[Lukoi Banacek]

I don't that number is even remotely accurate MW Buddah